Ecclesial Movements

"Ecclesial movements…represent one of the most significant
fruits of that springtime in the Church which was foretold by the Second
Vatican Council … Their presence is encouraging because it shows that this
springtime is advancing and revealing the freshness of the Christian experience
based on personal encounter with Christ." – St. John Paul II, Message
to participants in the 1st World Congress of Ecclesial Movements and
New Communities (1998).

The Pontifical Council for the Laity (PCL), part of the
Roman Curia, has a section devoted to ecclesial movements and new communities: Associations
and Movements Section.

The PCL also maintains a listing of ecclesial movements and
new communities, called the Directory
of Associations of the Faithful. In the Preface to the Directory, the
President of the PCL (Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko) explains: "The Directory is a
response to the invitation extended by John Paul II to the Pontifical Council
for the Laity in Christifideles Laici
to draw up a list of associations which have received the 'official recognition
and explicit approval' of the Holy See (no. 20). … This Directory lists
associations that have an international spread and in which 'the Christian
faithful, whether clerics, lay persons, or clerics and lay persons together,
strive in a common endeavor to foster a more perfect life, to promote public
worship or Christian doctrine, or to exercise other works of the apostolate
such as initiatives of evangelization, works of piety or charity, and those
which animate the temporal order with a Christian spirit.'"

Church Teaching on
Ecclesial Movements [page in development]

World Congress of
Ecclesial Movements and New Communities

Theme: "Ecclesial movements: communion and
mission at the threshold of the third millennium"

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict
XVI) gave a lecture on the theology of ecclesial movements (available as
"Ecclesial Movements and Their Place in Theology" in New Outpourings of the Spirit, Ignatius Press, 2007, pp. 17-61)

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